A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

Keep the commandments, and you will find peace; love God, and you will attain spiritual knowledge.

Learn the humility of Christ and the Lord will give you to taste of the sweetness of prayer.

He who seeks glory from men travels by the path of pride, but he who seeks glory from God travels by the path of humility.

Live very modestly. Be very humble. Don't speak idly about humility, but be like rubbish for people to step on, if you want Christ to visit you. Your heart needs to become as soft as cotton.

The way of humility is this: self-control, prayer, and thinking yourself inferior to all creatures.

As soon as a man becomes humble, mercy is not slow to envelop him. Then the heart is aware of God’s help, and acquires a certain power of assurance (in God) which arises in it. And when a man is aware that God’s help is actually assisting him, his heart becomes filled with faith in very truth.

Take remarks without grumbling: be thankful when you are scorned, disregarded, ignored. But do not create humbling situations; they are provided in the course of the day as richly as you need. We notice the person who is for ever bowing and fussily servile, and perhaps say, How humble he is! But the truly humble person escapes notice: the world does not know him (I John 3:I); for the world he is mostly a 'zero.'

If we are humble, God helps us to fight our sinfulness; if we are proud, He does not.

Love and humility form a holy pair; what the first builds, the second binds, thus preventing the building from falling asunder.

Labor to acquire meekness. Concerning the heavenly virtues, meekness and humility, the Lord Himself teaches us, saying: Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls (Matt. 11:29). Learn not from angels, nor from men, but from Me, He says; that is, from the higher wisdom.

Many people have the virtue of humility in some circumstances. They then succumb to a supposed demand of their social stature or profession and, under the guise of ‘social necessity’ or ‘professionalism,’ become arrogant in other circumstances. This is much like mixing soil and water in a container. When the container is untouched and at rest, the soil will settle and the water will remain sweet. But if the container is agitated, then the water and the soil are mixed and become mud. The mud then dries, the water evaporates, and only soil is left. Thus only a person of true peace, incapable of agitation, can actually maintain humble virtue, meanwhile tolerating in himself any ostensibly worldly behavior.

Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.

Observe at the same time that the mystery consists in the very office of humility, for Christ says: 'If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; how much more ought you to wash one another's feet.' For, since the Author of Salvation Himself redeemed us through His obedience, how much more ought we His servants to offer the service of our humility and obedience.

The Christian needs two wings in order to soar upward and attain Paradise: humility and love.

Humility has such power that it inclines even the hard of heart. For God, the lover of humility, works through the humble.

What joy is ours that the Lord not only forgives our sins but allows the soul to know Him, as soon as she humbles herself.

Let us have recourse to humility on all occasions; for the humble lie prone on the ground, and how can a man fall if he lies on the ground? But a man who stands on a height can easily fall.

Without humility no other virtue is possible, for if man does not fulfill virtue in a spirit of humility, he will inevitably fall into God-opposing pride, and will fall away from God’s mercy.

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5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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